


Genesis

by boychik



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Cheating, Drinking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-31
Updated: 2012-12-31
Packaged: 2017-11-23 02:05:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/616873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isa visits Dr Kawara in his home one evening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genesis

When he steps over the threshold of the Kawara household, the first thing he notices is the boots. They’re miniscule, as if belonging to a doll, and stand proudly on the mat, upright against the wall. They are periwinkle in color, with two little black loops poking out at the back. They are made of polyurethane and coated with a layer of nylon. A can of waterproofing and a one-inch paintbrush lie next to the mat, next to the little boots. Somehow it’s something that Isa can’t shake from his mind even after he’s placed his own shoes on the mat. Isa’s feet aren’t large, but his shoes look like they belong to a giant next to Ryouta’s baby galoshes. 

He heads into the house and Mrs Kawara greets him briefly in the foyer. He’s long wondered what Ryuuji’s wife looked like. She’s very young, and pretty in a genteel way, with thin arms and long eyelashes and soft curling hair. She scoops up Ryouta after zipping up his tiny yellow jacket and grabs his tiny plastic boots on the way out the door. “We’ll leave you boys to work,” she says with a smile, and wiggles her fingers at Isa as she manoeuvers out the door.

Isa perches stiff, straight-backed, on the Kawaras’ couch. It’s striped in sections of blue and red. Fresh paint coats the walls. There are still cardboard boxes humped in the corners, lids frayed, brimming with books. Everything smells so new.

Suddenly Ryuuji pops out from behind some beige wall. Isa jumps to attention. He’s not quite sure what to do. Do they shake hands? He extends his hand in preparation, but no, the incorrigible Ryuuji is bounding across the room and slinging an energetic arm around Isa’s thin shoulders. He’s childish, infectious, but Isa has been building up immunity to enthusiasm all his life. “Sir,” he says flatly, and keeps still until Ryuuji lifts his arm off of him. 

“Don’t be so tense, Isa! Aren’t you excited? This is the first time you’ve been over!” He’d be so handsome if it weren’t for that dumb grin.

“Ah, let me get the papers in order…” His sleeves are rolled up, exposing a field of light fluffy hairs on his forearms. The tendons in his long fingers jut at the knuckles and stretch over the backs of his hands. They ripple like darting fish as he spreads out the files of their report. Isa becomes intensely aware of the cuffs gaping at his own wrists, so much smaller, as he leans over the paper, next to Ryuuji.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” 

Dr Kawara begins talking but it’s not getting through. All Isa can think about are those tiny purple-blue boots, swooped up in a second by Mrs Kawara. Ryouta in those boots, stomping in a puddle after a rainstorm, flanked by Kawara on one side and his wife on another. They smile as their son squeals in joy. The smell of a rainy day. Where would Isa be on such a day? Maybe he would be outside, but probably he would be in the lab, where it’s antiseptic white and full of the most delightful substances and silent as administering an anesthetic…that is, until Ryuuji barges in, his ringing voice always ready to shatter the serenity of the lab, always ready to issue offhand statements of scientific brilliance, animated yet so articulate, his rosy eyes gleaming as they do when he’s in the midst of truth. But Ryuuji wouldn’t be there, he’d be with the tiny boots. But Isa, he’d rather stay by Dr Kawara’s side, whether it’s in the lab or in this room or outside on a day when the scent of the grass mingles with a cool rain and you can see the sunlight reflected in the water particles hanging in the air—listen, boots, everything is science, science produces that spectrum of color you see—

“Isa. Isa. Isa.”

Isa blinks. Ryuuji is rapidly waving that long-fingered hand back and forth in front of his face.

“Not in the mood for research?” 

“I’m sorry, sir. My mind…wandered.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s fine.” A beat. Then: “How about we try another kind of party? I think I have something in the back…” He gets up. Isa only stares at the depression of the cushion for a minute before Ryuuji is back with a bottle.

“Found it!” Dr Kawara brandishes the bottle of Cutty Sark. He grabs a couple of enormous wineglasses from the counter and pours a shot into each. “Cheers!”

Isa stares at the clear liquid pooled at the bottom of the glass.

“Oh, you’re…I forgot,” says Ryuuji. He scoots closer to Isa, bumps their knees together, tilts his head so it’s under Isa’s gaze and looks straight into his eyes. “Only one year until it’s legal, right? It’s not such a big deal.” He flashes a smile like a jewel. “Believe me, when I was your age, I did worse things.”

Not such a big deal, Ryuuji serving him alcohol and making eyes at him. The doctor’s right. It could be much worse. Like the things the doctor did when he was nineteen. Isa clangs his glass against Ryuuji’s. “Cheers,” he says. The rims of the wineglasses shimmer and glint crystal white as they make contact. Isa downs the shot—it’s his first time drinking, aside from the flutes of champagne at New Year’s, which he mainly faked sipping from anyway or outright declined—think of all the bacteria, just exponentiating on the rim like a speed capture of a jungle or a garden blooming—and wipes his mouth with his sleeve.

“This is so much nicer,” Ryuuji says, leaning back and snaking an arm around the back of the couch. Its pattern closely resembles Ryuuji’s tie, but soon it doesn’t because Ryuuji loosens the noose and slips it off, fingers working, little bones and flesh like birds’ legs. Who wears their necktie in the home? Not even Isa keeps his ribbon pinned to his collar after work hours. “I put it on for a business meeting,” Ryuuji admits. Dr Kawara pours him another glass of the scotch, stirs it for him so that it swirls like a tiny hurricane in the bottom of the glass.

Their fingers touch, and whether it’s the clumsy bump of inebriation taking hand or some other force propelling them forward, Isa doesn’t know and doesn’t particularly care.

Ryuuji’s fingers trace over Isa’s around the stem of the glass and he inclines his head toward Isa. He’s so stupid. He’s so perfect. Their knees touch. Ryuuji’s resting his hand against Isa’s neck, his jaw. It’s a foreign feeling, but that doesn’t matter. Isa wants to lean into those light lazy touches, but there’s something stopping him other than the barriers of fabric and skin. Ever since he walked through the door, he’s just seen those tiny boots in his mind.

“But what about…” _Mrs Kawara. Your wife. _Isa doesn’t want to say it. Can’t force those dirty words out his mouth, can’t pour dirty words like sewer water all over those nice new hardwood floors.__

“Hmm?” Ryuuji’s half-lidded eyes rise to meet his own.

“Never mind.”

Ryuuji leans in but stops. “Hold on—Isa, quit squirming—”

“I’m not, sir—”

And with a swift motion Ryuuji removes Isa’s glasses.

He’s cast instantly into a world of blindness. It’s horrible. Isa feels adrift, helpless, squirming as he reaches out for the thin red frames. He can’t see a foot in front of him, but Ryuuji comes into focus now since their noses are now two inches apart.

“Wow, your eyes are really pretty, Isa.”

“No they’re not! Just—”

“It’s like I’m looking into a galaxy. Or two. There are so many colors inside there, it’s not just purple, there’s gold and blue…I always wanted to see them up close. Have you ever looked into your eyes, Isa?”

“Why would I? Stop babbling! Just give me my glasses back!” He hates being like this. Hates letting anyone see him like this. And when it’s Ryuuji? That just makes it a thousand times worse. He turns his cheek away from Ryuuji, averting his eyes, not beautiful like galaxies as Ryuuji says but bruised and blind and circled deep purple from too many sleepless nights and pricked with the beginning heat of two tiny hot tears.

“Just trust me,” Ryuuji says, and calmly bends his cheek to Isa’s ear.

Ryuuji’s jaw is warm and rough as he works his way over Isa’s swan-pale neck. Isa feels the sandpaper scrape of stubble and his breath hitches and an exhale escapes him, practically a moan, in Ryuuji’s ear. Ryuuji’s lashes tickle him as they brush up against his throat, then Ryuuji opens his mouth and Isa smells the alcohol, mixed with some sort of aftershave—funny, wasn’t it, when his cheeks felt so warm and so rough, like they could scrape Isa’s baby skin away—and clean soap smell and just Ryuuji, the way he always smelled, like some sort of delicious, intoxicating spice the Silk Roaders with their extravagantly bundled camels and caravans would travel ages just to get a whiff of.

Isa’s hand crushes into Ryuuji’s chest and Ryuuji’s hands are slipping quickly across Isa’s narrow chest, up and over Isa’s thighs, cupping his face, drawing him into a kiss like Isa’s the water to his dying desert man.

Before he knows it Ryuuji has flipped Isa over like a fish, parted his shirt, and pressed his mouth to his flat pale stomach. He licks a snail trail from navel of sternum like his tongue is a knife ready to slice through milky flesh and pearly bone. Dr Kawara props himself up on strong forearms, curling over Isa to look him in the eyes.

And the key turns in the lock.

In an instant they will be caught in the act. Ryuuji stares into Isa’s galaxy eyes for one breathless, terrified moment. It’s nothing Isa’s ever seen before and he wants this moment to last, this connection with those pumping heartsblood eyes, so that from under the warm weight of Kawara’s body he can examine him as intimately as he’s always wanted. But the look they both exchange lets it be known that there’s nothing else they can do besides spring apart, Isa struggling to button his shirt even as his slim fingers tremble, Ryuuji whipping his tie back around his neck before plumping up the end pillows, cylindrical and tasseled and striped to match the couch. Ryuuji quickly places the glasses back on Isa’s face and Isa sees crisp and clear like he was meant to, only now there is nothing to see but Ryuuji fighting back his own disappointed expression with a nervous swallow. Isa closes his beautiful eyes and slips his fingers around Ryuuji’s big warm hand for one last moment. Even as Ryuuji emits a weak, “Isa…no…we don’t have time,” he can always let go when Mrs Kawara walks through the door, her son in tow, his little boots dangling. No, not her son—their son. Kawara’s son. Isa’s stomach turns. Who is he to be a homewrecker? That’s so selfish, so disgusting. Still, he wants nothing more than to return to Kawara’s arms, settle his galaxy weight on bucking hips, and inhale Kawara’s spicy lips and breath and bones and fingers. He wants to be selfish and he wants to never let go. That is why when he leaves, when he pulls on his dim cold coat and heads out the door in his mammoth, hard-toed black oxfords, he doesn’t look back. No furtive glance at Ryuuji means that there’s no goodbye, only an abrupt parting that’s not an ending at all. And if there’s no ending, maybe their story’s not over yet. Isa leaves like a crow on the wind, black and cold and calling for something beyond his reach over and over into the dark sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear beautiful hatos,  
> Happy New Year!  
> Long live wish fulfillment!  
> I apologize for my run-on sentences/paragraphs.
> 
>  
> 
> Dear Ryuuji,  
> I am sorry that I made you such a deviant.  
> I don't really think you're a cheater or a creep.  
> This was only a "what-if" scenario.  
> Please forgive me.  
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Dear this one bird that kept climbing on the windows as I wrote this,  
> It felt very strange.  
> But now you are gone and I miss you.  
> Oh well.  
> Goodbye.


End file.
